Thank you.

We'll start with approval of the minutes.

Is there a motion to approve the minutes?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Great.

Thank you.

So at our workshop, we have two agenda items.

And uh if our manager of sustainability, Jenny could share with us your report, that would be great.

Good afternoon, council members.

Jenny Willoughby, sustainability manager for the city.

So right in front of you and on the screen is our annual report for uh we do it actually for uh an 18-month period.

We have a little bit of a um an overlap because of fiscal year and calendar year.

Certain things are measured in certain ways.

And that we'll go through that.

So just basically the table of contents and who we are.

We have a sustainability committee, and the committee is quite helpful in a lot of our events and uh with you know with Tree Frederick and also if we need to review plans or anything like that, they go through that committee as well.

Uh so navigating this report, one of the things we did this time around was we actually um put some little icons next to certain things so that you'd know what sector they were in because we did it more of a project-based report, and that's why it's so much longer, so that you guys could get an idea of what kinds of projects we do, and then what kinds of projects we also help with uh with other departments.

You can read my report.

Um so our fiscal impact, just to sort of give you a really quick rundown.

Uh we have some grants that we have received, and then in 26 the ones that we've requested.

And then the main thing, you know, our volunteer impacts are huge, and I don't think this even counts everybody.

Uh we we we do the best that we can with our friends of groups and uh calculating all of our cleanups and things like that.

Um so this is our best guesstimate for the fiscal impact of our volunteers throughout the city.

And then this year in review is sort of a little infographic which I've produced before just to give you a little snapshot.

Um we had 48 outreach events, which is more than we had the previous year.

Um the main things for energy.

Um we did go as our sectors shifted.

We we measure our electricity overall, but we also measure it by sector.

And when we started this in 2013, street lights were 25 percent, and they are now 15 percent.

So changing out to LEDs has completely shifted our sector usage around uh our water has increased, but our street lights have decreased.

And that was the one thing that we tackled because it was one of the ones that we could actually uh move the needle on, and we have so um canopy.

We'll be doing our canopy assessment in um we'll start that July 1, hopefully this year, and we'll be doing that every four years from now on uh to comply with the new state forest conservation regulations.

Uh our compost, we're at about 1,900 households now, and we have a steady approximately 44 pounds um per household per month now.

We're we used to be ranging from 43 to 47.

We're at we've been pretty steady at 44 now, and we have a 1.5 uh month over month growth.

So that's pretty it's it's just a steady little growth.

It's not a ton, but every once in a while when we put an ad out, we'll see a bump.

And we do calculate that we figure out which one things are working and and use that to our advantage.

May I ask a question about composting?

Yep.

Uh we participate in this program.

Okay.

And I really appreciate it.

Um how are you reaching out to people?

Because thinking about 90,000 people almost in this city, and it's such a good program.

What do you think are the barriers for people participating?

I think there's a few things that one is people living in multifamily housing.

So we only have one uh group drop-off bin at the at this time, but we have space in our program for four more.

So if you all want to give us some locations in your districts, that would be really great.

Um we're always looking for partners to to place those uh the group drop-off bins to make it effective for those users in multifamily homes.

I think that's probably one of the biggest barriers.

Um our single family homes seem to and and townhouses seem to be fine with it.

Um I haven't really seen any problems from them.

We did have a little hiccup where folks got upset when we changed over from the bin model.

Um, but that seems to have evened itself out and uh I think folks are are fine with it now.

So um yeah, I mean uh with the study, I'm happy with this growth.

I think that it's good.

And like I said, we do see a little bit of a bump.

Social media is seems to be one of our biggest drivers, and then events.

So when we bring our buckets and we bring our compost and we do events and story times and things like that, that seems to be helpful.

So yeah.

Jenny, along with that, you mentioned particularly around districts.

Can you talk a little bit more about that in terms of participation in terms of also drop-offs and things like that?

Drop off of participation.

Or not drop-off participation, but inclusive I should say drop-off participation, excuse me for that word.

Um in terms of including more people, including more people.

Okay.

Could you mention particularly like in districts?

Yeah.

That if that support was there.

Can you talk about that with what would we need, I know financially, of course, um support.

What else?

Uh it's mainly financial.

It's it's and then getting the word out.

So once people understand how to do it, that's why I say our educational events, once they come to like a story time or or an event where we actually show them how to compost, they're like, oh, that's easy.

And then they sign up for the the bucket.

They realize it's not actually that complicated.

I think that's one of the things that we're doing.

So I got drop-off, I mean drop-off, but in terms of information, you mentioned multifamily more involvement in that.

Right now, where are we multi-family right now?

I believe it's at Central Hispano.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Behind the building.

Yeah, yeah.

That's our partner.

And then, you know, if we have uh somewhere, you know, anywhere that's that can support, it's a big toter.

That's basically what it is, and folks can just come and drop drop off there.

They get a bucket.

Drop off, see, here you go.

I mean, we get we give them a bucket.

Yes.

But we um and and then they can just go take the bucket to the to that bin and dump it.

Yeah.

So we still want them to participate and we're happy to give them a bucket to do that.

Yeah.

And do we have room to run as far as number of households or buildings that we can still serve?

Do we have to do that?

Sorry, what's that?

Have we topped out with the number of of households we can serve or no?

We're good this year.

We um we still have funding available.

Um I think we had expected a 2.2 percent growth, and so we still have a little bit of room.

And we also had expected to add the four more sites, uh, the group drop-off sites, which we haven't done since we have a new council, and we wanted you all to help us figure out where you'd like to see some of these group drop.

Where you all know your councils, so or your council areas, so you might know better where some of these group drop-off sites might best go.

Is it possible to check in with the NACs on that?

Because they would know even better than I would in District 3.

Um I'm we're happy to talk to anybody.

You just you can yeah, have them hook up with us, we'll figure it out.

Yeah, yeah.

Um moving on to water and air, we do have uh temperature sensors and air quality sensors.

Um we have our cleanup summary there that gives you a little bit of information.

And later in the plan, we'll talk or later in the um booklet, we'll talk about these plans.

Um the next page is the climate and energy action plan.

This was something that took a lot of our time, and we we wanted to do it right.

We involved the community, we partnered with the county and also Metropolitan Washington uh Council of Governments to put together a climate and energy action plan that was for the community.

And we had 18 outreach sessions, we had two technical advisory committee sessions.

We had uh 645 respondents to the um the survey.

And right now we're in the process of building a climate dashboard, which we hope to launch at the end of June.

So you can read more about the SEEP there.

If you go into water quality, you'll see some of our some of the efforts that we make for water quality paint the plow was a big one.

That was a lot of fun.

That plow kind of kind of gets around and goes to some events.

It was at in the streets.

And we're getting ready to also do MBSS monitoring at our Carroll Creek stream restoration site so we can get uh macroinvertebrate and an index of biological integrity.

I won't bore you with the details, but it'll help me understand.

Um it'll give me a longer term picture.

That's what macros uh measure.

So temperature is important, but macros are important too.

In the stream.

Just check the Carroll Creek Restoration Project.

That's in the one in Ren Quarter.

Yes.

That one is from Husky Park to the wastewater treatment plant.

Yeah, it's about 7,000 linear feet.

Um and then we're also doing the Abraham Fall run uh project, which is phase two of Moter Avenue flood project.

That one will go first because it has a federal earmark attached to it.

Um but we're hoping to use the same contractor for both of them and just run them concurrently if we can.

Um you'll see the stream restoration projects on page nine.

We are at 100% design for both of them.

We are waiting for some SCD permits for both, but otherwise we actually have permits in hand and we're getting ready to go to RFP soon for both of those.

And the Purple Air Project, we have 11 monitors deployed throughout the city.

These are monitoring stations that are both uh we have a particulate matter 2.5 monitor and a temperature sensor attached to them.

Well, next to them.

And that's um I was gonna say she she's gonna get it to me.

Um you can see our sites.

We also are uh the the county also has some sites in the in the city, so we can borrow theirs.

They jumped on board with us to have Hood College grab this data.

So they're also using Hood to collect the data and help us look at it on a semi-annual basis so we can kind of get some pictures of of things.

Um let's see.

Moving on.

Jenny, do we need more uh monitors?

Yeah, we have four more monitors that we can deploy at this time.

So if you want more sites, uh we're just trying to.

So the idea is that we spread them around.

Uh we want to make sure that we have a good picture.

You can see where the points are on the map.

And the blue ones are ours, the purple ones are the counties.

And uh, I mean, I anticipate theirs will stay, but if you wanted to stick one with a county one, that's fine too.

But in general, we're gonna try to spread them out a little bit.

So if you have ideas for those as well, a partner that would host the site, we just need a place where we can hook up to Wi-Fi for the particulate matter monitor.

The temperature sensor can sit on a light post or something else.

It doesn't need that.

Uh doesn't need power either, but our PM monitor does.

Uh so again, our tree canopy, we are going to be doing our updated assessment in uh FY27, so I'll give you a better picture once that's complete.

Um, but for our Tree Frederick program, we always have enough money to plant about 200 trees, which equates to about two acres of trees.

I'd love to see more people jump onto all the other programs that are available in Maryland.

There's a bunch.

So if anybody needs some trees, I can tell you where to get some trees, not just from us but other places as well.

There's a there's a lot of programs out there that that are doing it.

Um let's see.

And then going to our organics recovery, this gives you an idea of uh our partners that we have developed over time, where we have our programming, um, and then gives you like by the numbers.

We also collect from our sanitation folks the municipal solid waste numbers, and you can see that there on the reducing waste together.

We also get the county recycling rate.

That's an overall rate for the entire county.

They can't separate us out because of the way they run their trucks, so we're just gonna have to share that number.

But that municipal solid waste is our number for what we dump at the transfer station.

And I cannot equate the minor dip in trash to compost.

I have no way to know that that's what happened.

So I'm sorry I can't tell you that.

Um so moving on, we have the Bird City Initiative.

This is a really fun program that just kind of literally has legs.

We it's um we've been using the mascot for a lot of different things, and now you see the mascot on the website.

Um, and we had a naming campaign.

There it was a lot of fun.

So yeah, we we've done a lot of programming around it.

And um Lauren leads the bird walks, I leave the bug walks, so when we do these kinds of things, that's a that's how we divide and conquer.

Uh we did have we did participate in the City Nature Challenge.

That was a lot of fun last year.

And we also, well, later on, I'll tell you what we're gonna do next.

But um, we did a lot of wildlife education with other groups.

So then moving into transportation.

These are you know, projects done through our transportation planner and our transportation engineering folks and um also transit.

And we want to put them in here because transportation is the biggest uh contributor to greenhouse gases in both our region as well as the city.

So it's something to keep in mind.

So these are really important projects.

These are you know, alternative transportation, it's um, you know, ways to get around without a car.

So um I'll let those speak for themselves.

And then uh roadmap to energy savings.

We're doing a lot of real creative things with this.

Um building energy performance standards came in uh last year.

We're required to comply for two of our buildings.

We um baseline or we provided a baseline for the DPW campus.

We did not have to yet provide a baseline for the FPD headquarters.

We'll do that next year once we have a full year of data.

That's what they require.

So and then at that point, they kind of give us an idea of what we're gonna be required to do to upgrade those buildings.

I don't know that there's gonna be a ton that we can do to the new FPD headquarters, but there may be a lot of interesting things we can do to DPW.

We'll have to see what they ask us to do.

Um recs, we are working on some really creative things with recs as well.

Uh currently we purchase recs for 100% of our electricity, and those are right now wind recs from Texas.

And I have been looking for projects in Maryland to shift those recs too.

And I've located some projects.

We signed up for an Anum agreement and we decided that to shift that project to a community solar agreement.

So that'll be coming forward to you very soon.

Um we're taking it out of Annum and putting it into community solar.

It's the same field.

We actually requested the public service commission change the project from Annum to community solar because it was beneficial for all of us.

So that's coming soon, and that will shift, I think about 40% of our electricity uh recs to Maryland recs, which will be really great.

And then we'll continue to look for other Maryland recs and move them to the state rather than outside.

And then why is water and so energy intensive?

That's about 50% of our um electricity usage is water.

So that's water um supply as well as wastewater treatment.

It's just uses a lot of electricity to clean the water.

So I don't have any other reason for you.

It really hasn't changed that much since we started doing the sector analysis.

It's been at 45 to 50 percent.

And then there's that bigger map that you can see the water street lights, unconditioned and occupied um spaces by sector.

We did 2013 all the way up to 2025, so you could kind of see.

Um I'm pretty satisfied with these numbers, even though our population continues to grow, we've actually kind of remained a little bit stagnant in our usage, our total um usage, which is about 25 million kilowatt hours.

So it sounds like a lot, but uh we're we're stagnating, which is great.

That's what I want to see.

What's an unconditioned space, a garage?

Yeah, a garage, a pavilion, um, anything where maybe it doesn't have walls and and it, but it has lights, you know.

It's not it doesn't have AC or heat.

Yeah.

Um but you can, you know, it would be an outdoor space basically.

So they're they're very low user users for electricity typical parks, you know, it's like parks facilities and things like that.

Yeah.

And then when you go to our roadway and stream cleanups, you can kind of see um what we did over the year.

We had a lot of volunteers come to events and help us clean up trash.

We have some hot spots that we know about that we try to put groups on.

If they come at come tell us that they want to do a cleanup, we put them there because we know that that is going to consistently be bad.

We check our spots as well pretty often just to see what's out there.

Is it the same type of trash?

Are we seeing something different?

Uh is it something code enforcement needs to know about that sort of stuff?

Uh and you can see our adoptor road road adoptions, the map here.

Um there are some um things that folks have to do.

It has to be a mile.

They have to agree to pick it up uh twice a year, and they have to have a group of at least three for safety on the road, and they have to wear their vests and everything like that.

For stream cleanups, we don't necessarily require that because you're next to the stream instead of along the roadside.

So it's a little bit different.

But um you can kind of see the impact that they've had.

639 bags of trash is pretty substantial.

So looking ahead, um you we are gonna do you know, Forced Conservation Act that's coming through that should come through to you uh soon.

We are working on the climate action dashboard that hopefully will be done by the end of June.

We are building that out right now, actually.

And then we are for 2027, we're working on our B City application.

That was the other wildlife thing that we were gonna do.

So we'll have a threesome.

We'll have Tree City, Bird City, and B City, we hope.

And so once um I get through to the Xerce Society, they they have to approve everything first, and then I have to bring it to you all for um moving forward.

And then another really cool project that is fun for us is the Intelligent Park Lighting Pilot.

Uh that's that's being done through um as a group of us, but the uh transportation planner was the one who initiated that.

So it's a really exciting project.

We'll see how it works.

So I we don't have any data on it yet, so it's just something that's upcoming and I wanted to share it with you all.

And I do have to give credit to Lauren.

Uh Lauren put this all together for you.

She's fantastic.

So and the outreach, a lot of the outreach events that you see, Lauren handled handled those, and so it's been really great having her on the team.

So with that, I will open it up to questions.

Councilmember Shackelford.

Question.

Um I know we've expanded um our uses in the parking garage in regards to electric vehicles.

Okay.

How are we with that in terms of monitoring in terms of more expansion or so I'll give you the the history of those.

Okay, so we have 30 electric vehicle charging stations in the city.

Some are Potomac Edison and some are Blink.

The ones in the decks are all blink.

And the ones at the Mark station, Taskers, Chance Park, Max Keane Park, uh, and the little parking area by Carmac J's, between Carmack J's and Old Town, those are all Potomac Edison chargers.

And there are eight level twos and two DC fast.

The two DC fast and two level twos are at Max Keen because of its proximity to the 815 corridor.

You have to have um three phase in order to put in uh DC fast charger, and they had it there, so we were able to put them in there.

The blink chargers uh were put into the decks, and we got a significant grant to do that.

So we put in about 65.

The total cost was about 250,000.

I can't remember the total cost, but it's something like that.

Because we had to run conduit, we had to add uh capacity.

We didn't have enough capacity in the boxes.

So we added six uh unit or six plugs in the uh Patrick Street and All Saints Street garages and four plugs at Court and Carroll.

We did not put anything in church because that's gonna be demolished.

So that hopefully will include that in the new build.

Um those are all maintained by Potomac Edison and Blink.

That was the agreement.

After five years for the um Blink chargers, we can choose to tell them to get out and the stuff will remain there and we can put in new chargers if we choose.

Um that's how long our um agreement is for.

Yeah.

So they're supposed to maintain them per our agreement.

And Potomac Edison, um, that was actually part of a pilot program through the pot of the uh public service commission.

And that's that's how those all got put in.

So we were their first pick to put those in.

So yeah.

Does that answer your question?

Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

I think it's great for update for us to be updated with regard to that.

And if you ever have any questions or somebody can't get access to something, just let me know.

We'll finish the question.

I sure will.

Thank you.

More?

Thank you.

Councilmember Hempel already?

First of all, thank you for this.

This is beautiful.

It's amazing how much work you're able to do.

I know you have a small team and you all work so hard.

Uh there are some of these programs that I have participated in, and some now that I know more about them, I would like to participate in the future.

Uh I do have a question.

When you mentioned the intelligent light.

So years ago I was introduced to the Dark Sky Society, and I know that light pollution is a problem for uh wildlife and and and for humans.

Uh does does some of the upgrades to our lighting with the LEDs, like how does that play in to light pollution?

Or is is I I imagine that's part of your formula.

It well, I actually don't get to pick the lights.

Um but I understand where you're going.

Um basically the way that our lights are laid out right now, the they're spread out enough to where the light is able to shoot down and cover a larger area.

If you wanted to put those caps on it, you'd have to have twice as many lights is what I'm told.

So um because it the it doesn't throw as much onto the ground.

Um that doesn't mean that you couldn't look at different lights.

I don't, I'm not a lighting expert.

So I would actually bring that to Kenny and and the DPW crew.

Um but the the whole purpose of this particular intelligent lighting project was to kind of look and see is there something else that we can do where the lights would actually turn off and come on when they're necessary and then turn back off.

Um yeah, ideally that works.

We just don't know.

We don't know how it's going to work on our system.

Um the uh shared use path is I think considered um a transportation uh unit, so it has to be lit, but I don't know to what extent that has, you know.

So yeah, there's all these different things that we have to think about and also safety.

So when you bring the police in, they have a completely different perspective.

So you gotta have everybody sitting at the table to answer all these questions.

And um I'm sort of stuck in the middle.

But um I'm happy to sit at the table.

I just uh I can give you a little bit of you know some wildlife perspective and things, but there's also other things to consider, most definitely.

Yeah, uh building on the council members question, what what metric are we evaluating for the intelligent park lighting pilot?

That's a good question.

I'll have to go and look at the um the we we have a sort of a project thing that we've started and I'll have to go back and look to see.

I imagine it's gonna be something like um, you know, did it turn on when it was supposed to and turn off when it was supposed to, and did it stay on longer than it was supposed to, and things like that.

Um then is it an appropriate amount of light that is something that you know the police approve and all that sort of thing?

I would imagine that's what it is, but again, I'm not the expert on that, so I don't know all those answers.

So also building on the council members' questions, which I share, uh the color of the LED and the cap or the luminaire, I guess, on top of it, that is all DPW TERF.

Yes.

Yes.

I have nothing to do with that.

All right.

Do you do you uh uh as a sustainability person, do you have any thoughts on the color of the light and its impact on the environment?

I don't know enough about it to make a good decision.

All right.

Uh uh there's also a neighbor perspective about street lights that are blue white as opposed to warm red.

Yeah.

And I think getting multiple perspectives and bringing everybody to the table is probably the best choice.

Okay, great.

But yeah.

Um next one is uh uh remind me you are a mighty staff of two.

We are a mighty staff of two.

But I borrow from other places.

Okay.

What what percent of your time or your colleagues' time is spent writing and managing grants, which by the way, congratulations on the dollar volume of grants that you have pulled in.

Um that's a good question.

I think it depends on the year and what grants are available.

Sometimes it can go anywhere from 20 to 25 percent.

Um but we also have now we have a grants um team.

We pay for their assistance, uh sustainable strategies.

So I have been able to shift some of that to them.

There's some where I take them because they're they're state or they're smaller.

And um but for federal grants, they've been a big help.

That's super because federal grants are just a nightmare.

They're really difficult to write and make sure that you've dotted all your, you know, everything.

And and they really help us through that process.

And building on that, and I I know we're approaching the budget season, but if if we had more sustainability staff, could we run faster and get more done in our sustainability efforts?

Um it depends.

I think.

Um I would, you know, there needs to be funding as well for for the projects too, not just for the people.

Right.

Um so it it would s it I would say it really depends.

But yeah.

Um sure.

Well, uh on a related note, um.

How and are is the plastic bag ban, is that something that was coordinated through sustainability?

It was not coordinated through us, but we actually ended up managing it.

Um we coordinated with the code enforcement.

And I do check in with Brittany, and so far we really don't get a lot of reports.

It's all complaint driven.

And she says she rarely ever gets one, and every time they go, it's unfounded.

So I I don't think that it's a so far we haven't really gotten a lot of reports for it.

And do you feel that's been a successful program?

I think so.

I really haven't had to touch it in a long time.

I mean, when we first implemented it, it was it was a good 50 percent of our time to taking complaints and trying to like get that going and you know doing all the socials and everything.

But after about a month, that was it it sort of slowed down.

People were not as angry about it.

Right.

So and then after six months, it really just isn't what it is now, where we really haven't had any complaints.

Yeah.

So it was proposed to me that we expand that effort to include bottles, but there's always effort required with any kind of program expansion.

What are your thoughts about adding a bottle bill to what the City of Frederick is asking from a sustainability standpoint?

I think it would be really difficult.

Um a state, it that needs to come from the state as far as I um I I think I think on our side it's gonna be really hard to implement.

I don't know how you do it.

You because the county, I mean, unless the county did it with us, and and then I, you know, it's just I think it would just be really difficult to actually enforce and implement.

Okay.

But uh every year or two there's a bottle bill that comes up through the state.

So and there was one that actually came close, uh, I think it was last year.

It was pretty close.

So yeah.

Okay.

Uh it's you noted in the I'm sorry, Congressman, that may be something.

Tomorrow we'll be having I mean Thursday we have a report from our partners with the state legislation.

That might be something to have a conversation and also we be with our delegation.

Yeah.

So just something to keep in our Yeah.

I I I think what they had the last time was actually really interesting.

They put um a lot of the onus on the producers rather than on the um, you know, the folks using the bottles, which that's always been the case before.

You know, it's always on us and never the producers, and this sort of reversed that.

And um but I don't know, again, I don't know where that went.

It I it didn't pass last year.

So thank you.

That's good to know.

Uh on page 24, you reference uh under forest conservation, the city may adopt more stringent requirements if they choose.

Yes.

So when the Forest Conservation Act comes through, um that should be coming through soon.

Um there's there are a lot more stringent requirements already from the state this time around.

So you'll get to see those.

Um but you know, if there's something else that you all choose to do, that's always up.

That's this true for any of these bills, any of this legislation.

Would you be able to have a recommendation for us?

Uh my recommendations are in the what's coming through.

So when you see it when it's presented, it will be presented with the staff recommendations.

Great.

Okay, thank you.

Um and the last is, and you and I have talked about this, but what can we do to expand tree canopy other than encouraging private property owners to plant trees?

Is there any program to put more trees in parks, more trees in fields like around the waterworks, this the sewage plant?

I don't know about the sewage.

I don't think we have a lot of space over there.

But the um large open spaces from HOAs.

Um that that would be a a place to target, I think.

Um that are just being mowed right now and don't have any utility conflicts.

That's another key.

So that would be great to plant those areas out.

Yeah.

Great.

Oh, that was it.

Thank you.

That this is a great report.

I share my colleagues' enthusiasm for that.

Yeah.

You can thank Lauren.

She's the one who put down, you know, put this together.

So thank you.

And next uh we're going to have a conversation on data center environmental impacts.

So I'm going to bring uh Karen Cannon up here.

She's the executive director of Mobilize Frederick and also sat on the county uh data center work group.

So uh to provide some additional context.

I am not a data center expert.

I I know about natural resources.

So when you want to speak, just turn the button on.

So we're just going to talk about general impacts.

Uh you know, nothing nothing specific.

So of course, with water, um, some data centers need water to cool.

They are seeming to get away from this right now, but um it is still out there as a possibility.

The city has limited water resources available.

We're in a drought right now.

Um there are alternative technologies for cooling available.

They do involve electricity, though.

So we'll get into that in a minute.

Okay.

Well, Jenny, since you mentioned drought, talk me through that.

So right now we are in a severe drought for the for like 90 percent of the Potomac watershed.

Um it's likely that we're gonna be in a severe drought until we get some substantial rainfall.

Uh so that's just the situation we're in currently.

That's not to say that it's going to be permanent.

It's just, you know, right now that's what we're looking at.

Um, you know, we're not even pulling water from the reservoir right now because we just it's too low.

So um unless that's gone up and I didn't know about it.

But um yeah, it's it's it's very it's extremely low right now, and that's across the Potomac watershed.

So like I said, I don't know that's not going to be permanent, I I hope.

Um we're usually blessed with a lot of water, but the other part of that is that in this area um you know we have a lot of we have a lot of people pulling water from the Potomac and other resources.

So we just need to be mindful of those kinds of things.

So, Karen, if you want to step in and uh I'm happy to add more detail.

Um if I'm adding too much detail, tell me to move on and I'll stop.

Um but just to add a little bit of context, what we've seen like in Frederick County.

Karen, can you give me one thing?

Can you pull the microphone because I'm being recorded, yeah.

So if you it can you can pick it up.

If you just move a little closer.

No, pick up this.

Yeah, there you go.

Thank you.

Can you hear now is that better?

I I'm concerned about I'm not concerned about the recording.

Yes, yes, thank you.

Um I was just gonna say, based on our experience, what we've seen in the county so far, um the Rowan data centers being built down on the Quantum Frederick site are approved for about 440,000 gallons per day for each of their three data centers.

Uh so it's already using up the allocation on that campus, uh, which was 1.2 million gallons per day.

So just to kind of give you the context of how much water you're talking about for a water-cooled data center.

Uh and there are opportunities to uh sort of impact that.

You can restrict or potentially you know, put um measures in place to require the data centers to not use evaporative cooling to require closed loop systems if they're gonna use water.

And as Jenny mentioned, there are alternative technologies that are sort of like anti-freeze type things that you so they're not using as much water.

Um of course, if you don't use water at all, then your electricity use tends to increase.

Data centers, what size are we also talking about here?

Because you know we we're talking they vary in scope, so the ones down in Adamstown, I think are between about 450,000 square feet and up.

Another way to think about the data centers too, though, as you start hearing from data center developers, is to talk about it in terms of megawatts of power being used as opposed to square footage because any other questions about water?

Okay.

We're gonna go on to the noise.

Um residents who you know live around data centers, of course, report a constant hum, and this is uh just been noticed across the board.

And the noise produced from operations, including backup generators can of course impact wildlife.

And the recommendations from it's actually the nature conservancy to study uh include keeping the noise uh below 55 decibels at 300 feet away from the facility and using the physical barriers, and that's to reduce noise levels by 70 percent.

There is a current bill, I believe, that wants to reduce this to 45 or 50 decibels, so a little bit lower.

And um that's an interesting one.

I don't know how far that will go.

It's just on the floor right now.

So um yeah.

Do we have noise restrictions on other industries already in place?

That's a good question.

I believe there are some noise restrictions.

I'm not sure if it's on specific industries, though.

That would be a question for Gabrielle.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think in the county it's based on the industrial zonings.

I don't know about in the city, but in the county it's kind of aligned with the zoning type and the use case.

Do you do you have an analogy of what uh 55 decibels at 300 feet?

Uh some something that a layperson might be familiar with, like a long mower.

A babbling brook.

A babbling brook is 55.

That is what they say.

Yeah.

Um it's because for this particular number they were looking at at um predatory birds, and they need to be able to hear their prey.

And uh so a babbling brook they can hear over that, but um much more than that.

It's uh yeah, it's too high.

So at 300 they were saying, you know, at 300 feet away from the thing generating the noise.

So obviously it's gonna be much more when you're closer in.

Right.

Yeah.

So um moving on to emissions.

Um direct emissions, of course, are going to come up come from the backup generator operations.

We know that because they're going to be doing some testing, regular testing, they'll have to.

Um the recommendations from the work group included using tier four backup generators.

And if possible, using battery storage uh or solar for backup.

And I know those are challenges, but we're getting much better with our battery technology and um I think you know, being creative about some of our approaches may be a good way to go.

Um that that'll reduce our emissions um from these facilities.

So Karen may want to weigh in on some more things.

Yeah, that I just wanted to jump in with like some scale sort of context for that.

Again, what we're seeing with the data centers built in Adamstown is that they're typically requiring like a hundred generators per data center.

So it's like a hundred, three megawatt generators per data center.

So it's just thinking about that scale.

And if you have more than one data center in a you know defined area, then you you're talking about hundreds of backup generators in the same place.

Um we're also seeing in the county that so far none of the companies building down there have actually spec'd tier four generators, even though the ordinance says they need to be tier four or equivalent.

Um they're arguing that the they're just having a hard time getting that equipment at this point.

So what they're putting in are tier two with what you could think of as like a catalytic converter on them to uh bring them up to a tier four standard of emissions.

Um the other thing we've found is that when the data centers go through their air quality permit applications, uh MDE is looking at them one at a time.

So again, if you end up with you know five data centers within a few hundred acres or something, and each one applies separately, then MDE is not looking at 500 diesel generators and the emissions from them.

They're looking at 100 and then 100 and then 100.

So we're not really getting a good picture, I think, of the total emissions coming from all the different generators in a large site.

And just to check, uh is it a fair assumption?

And if not, that's okay.

But the emissions from one data center times five if there are five of them, is that is it a logical conclusion to make about emissions?

I think it would depend on the size of the data center.

I mean and also um is it using backup generators, or is it using solar as you know, I think there's a there's a lot of different variables there.

So I don't think that we could compare them.

Um That's true.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I guess the other thing to mention just quickly is that you know people think about using the generators in emergency situations uh and then they'll argue that because the data center campuses are, you know, they have like the main power cables coming into the campuses, so they don't actually lose power all that often, but they do have to test them on a regular basis.

So they are going to run.

And when the data centers are being built and the generators are first installed, they are run for a longer period of time to make sure that everything is working properly and getting calibrated and all of that.

So I haven't found anywhere, but do you well I've heard different numbers.

How frequently are do the generators have to be tested weekly, monthly?

I think it's monthly, but I'm not an expert on that either.

So I don't know either.

Yeah.

Um also move to vibrations.

Um this is an area where we aren't really sure um what kind of vibrations these generators will produce when they're in in mass, like what we're potentially talking about.

The concern for us is the carst topography in you know our proposed areas.

We have car stover sort of on the east side.

And that is something that you know we we want to be can considerate of uh because of sinkholes.

And we just we don't know.

So, you know, it would be really interesting to have a vibration analysis and to you know see what that looks like you know, to answer those questions.

Um we're just we're unsure about that.

So mitigation you might need uh to be able to use those.

And I don't I'll let you weigh in if you want.

Yeah, I don't know too much about this, but I do know that it's something that's being requested now, I think, in the county site plan approval process to have a vibration analysis done along with uh sound analysis.

And who was gonna pay for that?

Uh the the builders who pay for that.

All right, thank you.

And we also have, you know, to think about electricity.

So we don't control electricity in the area.

Um res but residents and businesses, of course, are gonna see the impacts of of data center usage.

The state, you may know this already, um, is a net you know importer of electricity.

We don't generate as much electricity as we use.

And um so that that's a consideration.

Electricity when you don't have water for cooling is used for cooling if you know it's not an option.

Um so that's gonna increase that electricity usage even more.

And then another consideration is that our our electricity costs are already high, and that's directly due to data centers, and that's per our our city electricity supplier said that to us.

So um I wanted to make that clear.

We were told by our supplier that that's one of the reasons that the um rates are so high.

Can you explain like I imagine the people running the data center are gonna have their electric bill.

How does that impact the resident's electric bill and other industries?

Like why I understand that more power is coming to the area, but if they're paying their bill, can you kind of explain that mechanism?

As I understand it, it's higher demand.

Um that increases the the bill for everybody because there's higher demand and less to go around.

So I don't you might have some more insight on that as well.

Yeah, to add to that, if you think about your electric bill is it's made up of three parts, the generation, transmission, and distribution pieces of it.

So even if the data center is paying for the actual power that they're using, the power company has had to increase not just generation, but also the transmission and distribution infrastructure for it.

Um you'll also hear sometimes that while the data centers are going to cover the cost of the transmission infrastructure to their site, but that what ends up happening is that they're actually covering a percentage of it, and then the remaining percentage gets distributed across all rate payers.

So there has been quite a bit of analysis and reports published and um showing that uh regular rate payers are starting to pay increased prices that are attributable to the expansion of data centers in their areas.

Are there ways to mitigate that from a policy point of view?

Have we seen in other communities?

I don't know.

There's it's not my area of expertise but um there has been a lot going on all around the country with people trying various strategies to to deal with that.

Some have been more successful than others sometimes you know there are court cases and things get overturned and things like that.

So we could definitely do some research and get back to you on with more information I think.

One that I've heard um probably the most often is bring your own power where they're required to either install a solar facility near the site or you know some other way of bringing in electricity to the site.

So that can be a challenge for smaller sites but at the same time it wouldn't be you know pulling from the grid.

So that's something you know we have to weigh those options.

At the same time we don't regulate electricity the the public service commission regulates that and utilities are responsible for it.

So unfortunately we don't have a lot of regulatory power with this here.

So I just want to make that clear well there and one of the approaches also is to um require that data centers have like power purchase agreements in place where they're sourcing and you require them to source you know new renewable energy so they're not just using up all of the renewable energy that's being created for everybody else.

So that's that's one approach that some folks are trying to put in place.

That would be a an approach similar to what we're doing with RECs where we have a facility that's off site somewhere we're purchasing the RECs from that facility it is generating the solar within the state we're not getting that solar immediately but that's sort of how it could be offset.

So somebody somewhere is putting more electricity onto the grid to to account for what they're using.

So the other approach to would be and there was some state legislation proposed for this over the last couple of years to require data centers over time to improve their energy efficiency so to kind of just try to ramp it down over the course of like 10 years until they get to a net zero kind of position so it's it's another way to just try to control the amount of electricity they're using and not have it impact you as as much.

There's also quite a bit of data center legislation going through the state legislature this year.

So when you meet with your state delegation that might be a interesting topic to bring up with them.

And I will say that at the state level they are doing an assessment and we had hoped that that was going to be out at the end of this year but I think didn't they delay it to next year I think they're going to yeah so the state you know we're all kind of waiting for that to come through we don't know what that's going to look like but they did or order that and then delayed it a little bit but we expect that in 2027.

I I know you can't predict the future but when do you think that study will show up late 2027, middle early?

They just approved it in the earlier this this general session so I think the last I heard we were looking at like September of 2027 instead of 26.

Yeah since it was pushed out one year.

Yeah.

I think that's that's what I heard too.

Okay.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I think I have a duplicate slide in here but yeah.

So for emissions, just to give you all some perspective we just finished our climate and energy action plan.

So uh just to give you some numbers this is the county's graph.

Uh this is what their graph looks like per the um established resolution um adopted in 2020 the city aims to reduce emissions 50 percent from 2010 levels by and by 2030 and 100 percent by no later than 2050.

And this is also a county goal.

So that's one of the things that we used for doing the CEAP.

That's also um something that the climate emergency mobilization work group was working on as well so their report fed into this so we're all kind of working towards this main goal.

And per our CEAP that goal is going to be impossible with data centers unless there's stricter state regulations in place.

So it's not just us it's the state also needs to step in and do some things to to help um bring that back down.

And the recommendations include encouraging facilities with large impacts to also meet those goals.

So that's really critical.

So you can see that uh that red line going off into the sunset there.

Um that's it says uh residential buildings achieve greater emissions reductions from energy efficiency and electrification than commercial buildings, however, Maryland's BEPS significantly enhanced GHG reductions achieved in the commercial sector.

And um what we hope is that that red line just drops back down.

We want it to be back in with all the other things there.

Um hopefully the commercial it will get back in line with the commercial sector.

But we definitely need state regulations to make that happen.

Um Did you want to say anything about it?

No, I think that goes back to looking at state legislation that would require them to you know gradually reduce their um their energy use over time to try to get to to reach those goals.

Because as it I mean, if it continues as it is now, um it really does kind of blow our climate goals out of the water.

I mean it's it's just an enormous amount of energy use um.

And emissions.

Right now, this is this is the county.

So right now we we don't have this.

We don't have the bump.

Ours looks good as far as our our trajectory goes.

And BAU is best available.

What does BA?

Oh, BAU means business as usual.

So if we didn't do anything, yeah.

That's what that means.

I'm sorry.

And so with Adamstown, the red dotted red line reflects building out all the entire acreage of Adamstown.

Or just the ones we've got now, or which it re it's if it's built out, yeah.

That's what they looked at at the whole project.

Just that one though.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was before the map was expanded too.

That was the original quantum site.

I see.

And now they've expanded that by about a thousand acres, so it'll increase beyond that.

So the red line goes higher.

It could yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I mean, it depends on the choices that are made as far as building because it doesn't have to.

Right.

There's choices.

Yeah.

When we're talking about emissions, and I love these goals of of reducing emissions to 100 percent by 2050.

What emissions, I mean, are we gonna have no cars in 2050?

I mean, what what do we mean when we say emissions?

So greenhouse gas emissions.

Okay.

And those are things that come from buildings from transportation.

That's the majority of our emissions right now.

Transportation is about 47 percent, and I think buildings are like 44 percent.

So the majority are those two sectors.

Uh I've been pushing more for transportation projects simply because there's more federal funding available for those.

So and also they're more visible.

So uh and they're the biggest piece of our GHG uh.

Buildings, though, this this is would fall squarely under buildings.

Um, you know, you're talking about things like the building energy performance standards, bringing those back down, getting us off of gas and electrifying them with cleaner sources of electricity.

Um, electric vehicles, battery storage, all those sorts of things can help bring that those GHG levels down.

Yeah.

I think the biggest thing is on-road um auto, you know, it's automobiles is mostly what it is.

And it's region wide, it's not just us, it's the whole region.

So there is a region-wide effort, of course, to reduce our GHGs from um vehicles, which is why there's a whole section in here about um shared use paths and and you know, bicycle lanes and transit and things like that, because those things do matter.

They help bring that GHG emission number down.

So if you go to water, so we're updating our water resources study, so that's that's something that DPW is working on.

So I don't have any answers for you there.

That's gonna be soon.

And of course, water conservation is critical.

Um we're seeing an increased regional demand, and then the climate change is altering our resource and um, you know, I manage the city watershed, and I can tell you it the trees up there are stressed.

We you know the groundwater is not where it used to be, and it's because we're in a severe drought right now.

So um we really don't have a good handle on what that looks like for us if we do have a multi-year drought.

I mean, we're in it now, but what if it gets further?

We don't we don't have an answer for that.

So recommendations would include um waiting for that study to be complete to better understand the impacts, the water study, so that we know, okay, this is kind of what we're looking at for the next 10 years.

What can we support, what can't we support, that sort of thing.

What when do you think that will be completed?

That's a question for Zach.

I'm not sure.

I think that um the DPW team was working on that, but I I don't know where that is in process at this time.

And does that include what we're pulling in from the Potomac through the agreement with the county?

I think so.

Uh it's a CIP project.

You can go and read on the thing that I don't tell you exactly what it includes in there.

Okay.

Yeah.

There was one element about water that we didn't talk about, and that is an option of using treated wastewater for cooling data centers.

So that would require infrastructure being built from wherever the data centers are going to be located to the wastewater treatment facility.

And would also mean looking at how much treated wastewater is actually available to be used because it would have to go out, be used to cool the data centers, and then be sent back to the treatment facility to recharge the rivers or the water source.

And we don't know how much would be lost.

So we have a permit that tells us how much we have to put back in.

So we would have to make sure that that the permit requirements were met if we went that route.

And that would be a, you know, if they wanted to do that, that would be a question for the developers to handle.

Um so going back to electricity.

So we're of course working to reduce our electricity usage for government facilities by installing newer tech, like you know, uh solar and um purchase recs, and we're looking at battery backup so that we can purchase electricity uh at night and store it for daytime use because it's cheaper.

So I'm working on that for several buildings right now.

Um something new and creative that I'm trying to, you know, reduce our bills with.

And then of course lead and lead equivalent facility build-outs like the FPD headquarters.

So requiring facilities with these large community impacts to bring your own power.

Um and then, you know, it it is a requirement of other um communities that are welcoming data centers.

They're just flat out saying, you know, bring your own power because it's we already are at you know capacity or something like that.

Again, we don't legislate the utilities, so that's gonna be a little bit challenging, but it's something to consider, especially since we already have a whole bunch of things that we're working on to, you know, to bring down those emissions.

And um, you know, it really would like like Karen said, um, sort of negate all of the our efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

There's actually another acronym that some people use which is um easier to remember, which is Beyonce.

Bring your own new clean energy.

Um so it's not just a question of bringing your own power, because they could bring, you know, a new gas generating plant or something like that, which would increase your greenhouse gas emissions.

So if you go with bring your own new, you know, adding your solar or wind um clean energy sources, that's you know, kind of an even stronger approach.

Agreed.

I didn't hear about Beyonce, but that's great.

Um, yeah, that was my duplicate slide.

So are there any questions?

I know that was just a really brief overview of the general impacts, resource impacts anyway.

I don't have all the answers.

So Councilmember Shekefer?

Yeah.

Councilmember Himleron?

Uh one of the things that I'm concerned with is is not just data centers, but we are doing a lot of building in Frederick, and how is that already impacting our water and how do we mitigate?

Because I feel like a lot of attention has come to this because it's so energy intensive.

Uh and and even, you know, we we went to a housing needs assessment, and you know, we're looking in in the county and in the city to build a lot more homes.

And um all of those homes are going to need water and power.

Um so I think it's important to make sure that we see this as an ingredient in the whole.

And I know that you think very holistically too.

Uh I don't know that that's a question more than an observation is is, you know, this is one intensive piece, but there's a lot of other building and that may need to require some regulatory things on on our part.

Uh if you have any recommendations to see it as a as a whole ecosystem here.

Um I'm here to answer questions to the best of my ability.

Uh, but you know, I don't I don't have all of the answers.

Um I like I said, water is one of those things where we haven't finished our study yet.

So I really I want to see what the what the water report says I I don't have any answers right now.

I just don't know what we're looking at.

It's interesting that we did it in a drought year, but I think it will look probably longer term than that.

But it we are growing and we have to be we do have to be considerate of the people that already live here and then uh considerate of the people who would be moving here and what impacts all of these things would have.

And it wouldn't just be data centers, it's all kinds of things, you know, what impacts any of the choices we make have.

So do you know what the water study is studying?

Is it studying where the water is coming from and the projections for that and then where the water is going and the projections for that?

I don't know that that's what the study is for.

Um I'll have to look at the CIP.

I can get answers for you.

And I can also try to find out when that's expected.

I thought it was soon, but I I don't know for sure.

So you don't we don't want a water study?

You're doing a water study for the I think it's for projections.

Yeah, I think it's to tell us how many, you know, like what can we support?

I believe that's what it is.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

What can we support?

I believe we do one every ten years.

And so the previous water report showed what in terms of our planning and projections.

I I actually don't know.

I'm not sure that that uh I'm not sure that it was completed when I was here.

I think that it was done before I got it.

Can you get a copy of that, please?

Is there a way you can get a copy of the incentive to do that?

I will try to find out more information for you.

That's a question for Zach, and I'll be able to do that.

Yeah, okay, okay.

Well, obviously, I'll have to Zach did not think that.

I think that's important for you for us in our conversation.

I do think it's yeah, he would be the best one to ask about it.

Yeah.

To see where we are on those projections from two years ago and how we are on track or whether we are.

Yeah, I don't know.

I can just speak in general terms about resource impact.

So of course, another question around water is of course water quality.

We see this across the country in regards to some areas.

So where are we in particular to the I mean I'll hope you won't say that our water quality is bad now that this over here this presentation, but I think it's important for us to inform and also reassure the public, you know, as well as us in terms of maybe policy concerns whether and I know we make some investments in our wastewater treatment plants and those type of mechanisms, but this this is important for us about our water water quality as we see across the country.

Those are not always the Yeah.

So the wastewater treatment plant has been upgraded to the most, you know, it's the best technology out there.

Um the water supply arena that you know each uh supply has its own things that each one is dealing with.

So it depends on those um supplies as far as w how it's treated and that sort of thing.

Um and also when you talk about water quality, there's different ways to measure water quality.

So what are you talking about?

I mean, if you're talking about temperature, um no, our streams are too hot.

If you're talking about macroinvertebrates, I think we're doing okay.

Um and that sort of gives a more a longer term picture.

Um but yeah, there's a lot of different ways to measure water quality, so it really just depends on what you're looking at.

Well, Carl, in terms of uh a non-engineer, not sustainability um expert drinking water.

That's a question for our drinking water folks.

I would yeah.

If you want, I can ask.

Um they I remember they provided me with that information very recently, but I don't off the top of my head know all the the details.

Our water supply um we come out with an annual report every year.

Yeah.

You can read that.

Yes.

I'm just thinking this may be another another conversation, other um hearing Yeah.

As far as I know, everything is okay.

Conversation.

Yeah.

Ms.

Cannon, uh my understanding is that you led the county task force on data centers?

Yeah, I co-chaired the data center work group.

And were your recommendations recommendations adopted all, not at all in part?

Uh some of them were adopted and some in different ways or to different extents.

Um the siting recommendations that we had were not quite adopted.

Uh they just chose a different approach.

Um we had suggested floating zones for different areas around the county with certain criteria, you know, for and you know, that would allow or disallow different properties from being able to be in a data center floating zone.

The county decided to include to maintain some of those criteria, but then to develop an uh a data center overlay zone instead of a floating zone.

So just restricting it to one area in the county.

So from a siting perspective, some of the recommendations were picked up and others were not.

From a sustainability perspective, very few of the recommendations have been adopted so far.

So uh mobilized has actually been working on a framework for a sustainability ordinance to go along with data centers to see if we can strengthen some of these requirements, some of the things that we've just talked about in terms of energy use and water use efficiency and things like that.

Thank you.

Well, it's it's a little off topic from sustainability, but do why would you prefer one type of zoning as opposed to another?

Um in terms of protecting certain types of natural resources, so you know avoiding placing data centers in areas that have like prime farmland or rural legacy areas, areas that have you know high high biodiversity or forest resources and things like that.

You wouldn't want we didn't want to see a developer coming in and you know clear-cutting an area or building something right next to a sensitive area or something like that.

So the criteria were to target areas that were already targeted for growth, so within growth areas um near an electricity, a power source, you know, high voltage lines that already exist so that they wouldn't have to build new rights of way for more high power lines and that sort of thing.

Um and also close to a source of treated gray water to try to minimize the use of potable water as much as possible.

So those were some of the criteria that went into the siting discussion.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, I think we submitted our recommendations in the spring of 23.

23 or 24.

I have time the years are flying by.

Two years.

Two years.

Okay.

Thank you.

And actually all of the presentations that were provided to the county's work group are on the county's website there.

So is there's a huge amount of information out there.

Um if it's okay, I'd also like to put in a plug for the climate summit coming up in a couple of days, primarily because we are going to have two opportunities to learn more about data centers there.

Um there's going to be a workshop on Friday afternoon, so it's 90 minutes, so it will be a real kind of deep dive into data center legislation and all kinds of opportunities and things there.

And then on Saturday morning, we're going to have uh a panel of speakers on data centers.

So it will be a little bit shorter, but it should give a a good overview of what's going on in the county, what's happened so far and kind of where we're going.

Any closing questions?

Well, thank you both very much for coming and sharing about the city sustainability as well as kind of some opening thoughts about data centers and sustainability.

Thank you.

I'll get you the information about the water uh resource study and water supply.

All right.

Well, we we don't have it on our agenda, but are there any public comments that wish to be made?

Kevin Sellnery's Fifth Street.

And I work with Karen quite a bit and Jen.

Not quite as much, but quite a bit.

So just a few points.

Um we talk about generators, it's it's good to know that we all think of a gen rack or in our house or we think about a portable generator that it's a work site.

The generator is a locomotive engine.

That's how big they are.

Um so they'll fit inside a 53-foot container and be next to the uh uh data center.

And as Karen said, if you have a hundred of them, imagine a hundred locomotives, and if you have five campuses, that's 500 locomotives.

And if there should ever be a brownout.

I'm not sure 300 feet, 55 decibels would be adequate.

So just a the reality check on the size of these generators is just uh uh scary.

Um that's the first point.

Um second one, and I'll jump to the thing that goes generators are fueled by diesel fuel generally.

Um the diesel fuel plus any compounds that have to be used in the coolant.

Cooling system.

Because you have to flush the cooling system every once in a while, even if you recycle water several times.

Um essentially have to add biocides.

So if you store water and you're going to run it through several times, the water can have biocides.

So not only does it build up materials that are coming from the cooling system, but it will have the compounds that are in the storage water to then flush out to the treatment plant.

So that's a concern.

The diesel fuel is also the quantity of diesel fuel, as Karen mentioned in the number of uh generators.

Diesel fuel on in the East Alco site.

And beyond that, in the new one thousand uh acres that have been added, it's probably even more.

Jen brought up the air monitoring system, and the county has two near Adamstown.

So I think we ought to look at those now, particularly as the construction's gone on, because a lot of the Adams Sound residents are complaining about respiratory distress and problems with their water from particle loading to the water.

I'm sorry, I'm gonna go just a little bit.

Uh currently the county and the city are in negotiation or discussions about the Patuxent River water service uh agreement.

Um because the water for the city primarily comes from new design road, which is a county facility.

So the the there is a limited amount of water.

Jason Michael for for you three should be somebody you would talk to within the city's uh water supply network.

He provided he he'll provide you tables that show how much water is being used, how much could be supplied, and after they have these discussions, how much water that the new agreement will allow to be used for every use data centers and beyond.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Uh just as a follow-up for Jenny, who who at the in the city would we talk to about getting data from the county air quality monitors down in Adamstown?

Or is that not an appropriate question for the city?

We'd have to just ask the county directly.

No, it's us.

It's um we are partnering with uh DOEE and their monitoring stations.

If I want the data, I can just request it.

Uh we have to wait for Hood to sort of process it, though.

We usually get it on like a semi-annual basis.

So it requires us to to go and download everything.

Yeah.

Got it.

All right, thank you.

If you need it, I can get it.

All right.

All right.

Any uh closing comments from up on the dice.

Any comments?

I just want to thank you for all of your knowledge and all the work that you've done and the work that you've done in your spheres, but also putting this together today.

Thank you so much.

Yep, I would echo that.

Thank you all.

Our session is adjourned.